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Virgin Produced India Acquires Local Rights for 'Insurgent'

The Shailene Woodley-starrer is the first release by the Indian arm of Richard Branson's content company.

Virgin Produced India has acquired the Indian rights to the Divergent Series: Insurgent from Lionsgate Films International in association with Kinesis Films. The film's India release coincides with its worldwide opening on Friday.

This is the first release for Mumbai-based content company Virgin Produced India, a partnership between Richard Branson’s Virgin Produced, India's Cinema Capital Venture Fund and LA-based Tantrik Group.

“As one of the world’s most recognized and respected brands with deep roots in entertainment, we felt it important to introduce Virgin Produced and enter the Indian market with the right film,” Virgin Produced CEO Jason Felts said in a statement.

Based on best-selling author Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, Insurgent is directed by Robert Schwentke. The cast includes Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts. The first installment in the series, Divergent grossed close to $300 million worldwide. While its India box office figures are not available, the film was released here last April by Universal Pictures India.

Virgin Produced India was launched in November 2013 with an aim to develop, produce and distribute Bollywood films — in addition to remaking Hollywood content for Indian audiences. While the company has not announced any local content productions so far, its partner — investment advisory company Cinema Capital India — earlier produced and distributed Bollywood hits such as 2012's Dabangg 2 and Krrish 3 in 2013.

Launched in 2010, L.A.-based Virgin Produced is the film and television development, packaging and production arm of Branson's Virgin Group. Some of its productions include Limitless, Machine Gun Preacher, Immortals and biopic Jobs, among others.